“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” - Joseph Campbell

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." - John F. Kennedy

"I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived." - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

As the leak continues unabated, even more complications are becoming apparent.

The hurricane season is approaching. One scenario has a hurricane carrying oil saturated water onto the crop fields close to the shoreline, literally dousing the fields in oil. In addition efforts to contain the spill would be come a absurd moot point within a hurricane.

The oil is mixed into the water below the surface. The dispersants break the oil down into little globs that are suspended in the water. That of course represents a death sentence for all living creatures in that water. The food chain gets destroyed.

Finally the millions of gallons of oil in massive plumes below the surface can travel virtually anywhere throughout the oceans. This leak will show up beyond the Gulf of Mexico.

The damage to the shorelines of Gulf states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida is literally only the surface of the problem: The damage to the sea floor could be extensive, and oil could also devastate marine life between the Gulf floor and its surface, as well as in coastal areas far from the leaking wellhead.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Long story really short - Investors are concerned that European debt problems will take the US economy down a few notches. They are worried that reports due out this week will reveal that very concern.

If the data reveals that the US economy is being adversely affected by Europe's problems, then expect to see the DOW continue to drop. It could be a harsh week at worst.

Prudential's Praveen believes that despite slight gains in the last week of May, the U.S. stock market will not make significant progress until the European Central Bank steps up its purchases of government debt as the U.S. Federal Reserve did early last year.

In return for the European financial backstop, and urged on by U.S. President Barack Obama, Zapatero announced on May 12 the first cut to public wages in Spain’s 30-year democracy and a freeze on pensions.

(Spain's) Government debt, at 53 percent of GDP last year, is lower than that of Germany, France and the euro-region average. Still, weak growth may increase the burden as a proportion of the economy.

Certainly not the most creative dialogue, but it does deliver a certain dark comedic quality.

Frank Booth: Hey you wanna go for a ride?Jeffrey Beaumont: No thanks.Frank Booth: No thanks? What does that mean?Jeffrey Beaumont: I don't wanna go.Frank Booth: Go where?Jeffrey Beaumont: For a ride.Frank Booth: A ride! Now that's a good idea!

Raymond: Do you want me to pour it Frank?Frank Booth: No I want you to fuck it. Shit, yes, pour the fuckin' beer!

Frank Booth: Don't be a good neighbor anymore to her. I'll have to send you a love letter! Straight from my heart, fucker! You know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a fucking gun, fucker! You receive a love letter from me, and you're fucked forever! You understand, fuck? I'll send you straight to hell, fucker!... In dreams... I walk with you. In dreams... I talk to you. In dreams, you're mine... all the time. Forever.

According to the McClatchy article, BP's workers involved with the leak cleanup are inadequately trained with a 4 hour course, consequently they are experiencing illness from all of the toxic chemical exposure. They are not properly prepared or equipped to work in a toxic oil spill environment which includes the use of severe oil dispersants.

Call it adding misery to misery.

In addition the people that are living within range of the shoreline probably will also be exposed to a toxic chemical nightmare. I mean how would you like your children playing on an oil spill/chemical dispersant shoreline. Its a case where paradise turns into hell.

What is coming through more and more is that BP is solely about securing oil. BP appears to not have anything close to a sufficient and adequate way or method or technique for dealing with anything out of the norm. They are woefully ill prepared for emergencies.

...experts now estimate has spewed 37 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

"The organizational systems that BP currently has in place, particularly those related to worker safety and health training, protective equipment, and site monitoring, are not adequate for the current situation or the projected increase in clean-up operations..."

Locals also worry about the effects of dispersants on children who'll be spending more time outside and in the water because they're already out of school for the summer.

...a 6-mile-wide plume of invisible oil is snaking beneath the surface, in the deepest recesses of the gulf.

The thickest concentration, they found, was more than 2 miles beneath the surface — a mile deeper than where the Deepwater Horizon well has been spewing oil for the past month — and about 20 miles northeast of the collapsed rig.

We all saw this coming. Many livelihoods are dependent on the Gulf waters, clean Gulf waters. Fishing and tourism are huge in that area. One must assume that all of the peripheral businesses not even mentioned in the article will be adversely affected. The oil leak is an environmental disaster but it is clearly an economic disaster.

Once engineers had reduced the well pressure to zero, they were to begin pumping cement into the hole to entomb the well. To help in that effort, he said, engineers also were pumping some debris into the blowout preventer at the top of the well.

Adding misery to misery, there is another oil spill. This one occurred in Alaska with over 100,000 barrels of oil spilling. Hard to imagine that quantity of oil not being an environmental mess however they are saying the spill was contained to within a pump station. I wonder what that's like having over 100,000 barrels of oil floating around in your pump station.

The 800-mile pipeline between the North Slope oil fields and the Valdez tanker port is shut down due to a spill Tuesday of several thousand barrels of oil at Pump Station 9 near Delta Junction. A spill of that size -- totaling over 100,000 gallons -- is one of the largest ever for the 33-year-old pipeline.

At 6:35 a.m. futures are up, the dollar is down against the euro and pound and is up against the yen. Oil is up to over $73 per barrel.

The reports are cozy at this time of day. One wonders exactly what if anything has changed. Europe is still Europe and insolvency issues like this don't heal overnight.

Pre-market opening data on the first quarter GDP and unemployment is due at 8:30 a.m. Given the volatility and complete unpredictability of the market generally and especially now, who knows what is going to happen.

Look at yesterday with very strong futures in the morning, a nicely positioned dollar, and oil up. Still markets floated lower with the DOW once again below 10K.

Recall that just a short time ago investors were talking like the DOW was on a definitive track to 12K.

The government's revised reading on first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth is due at 8:30 a.m. ET. GDP is expected to have grown at a 3.3% annualized rate versus the initially reported 3.2% rate.

Also at 8:30 a.m., the Department of Labor will release its weekly jobless claims, which are expected to have fallen to 455,000 last week, down from 471,000 the previous week.

U.S. light crude oil for July delivery gained $2.01 to $73.52 a barrel.

We have the Q4000 vessel at the surface which has a crane for lifting heavy equipment and is a central part of the surface equipment for this procedure. We also have a number of other vessels: the HOS Centerline, with Halliburton pumping equipment; the HOS Strongline; and the BJ Services Blue Dolphin and Halliburton Stim Star IV pumping boats.

A total of 50,000 barrels of mud will be on location to kill the well – far more than necessary, but we want to be prepared for anything. Pumping capacity on location is more than 30,000 hydraulic horsepower.

The mud will be pumped down the 6-5/8 inch drill pipe (pipe is connected to the Q4000), then through 3-inch hoses, which go through the manifold on the seafloor. Then the mud moves through another set of 3-inch hoses attached to the Deepwater Horizon BOP choke and kill lines.

With the manifold, we can also pump the ‘junk shot’ if necessary to stop too much of the kill mud going out through the top of the BOP rather than going down into the well to stop the flow. By switching valves in the subsea manifold, we can inject the ‘bridging material’ (the junk), which will prevent such losses and enable the top kill to continue.

We’ve been testing the junk shot on-shore, looking at different configurations of what might restrict the flow out of the Deepwater Horizon riser and what types of materials would help shut it off. Materials in a junk shot can include well-known items such as pieces of tires, golf balls, and pieces of rope.

Most of the equipment is on site and preparations continue for this operation.

At 8:00 a.m. futures are significantly up, the dollar is up against the euro (of course) and flat against the pound and yen. Also, oil is up to around $70 per barrel.

One would think that this happy trifecta would indicate that stocks will gain today. Well, they might gain, and they might not. The market is basically all over the place. Recall yesterday which began with the DOW losing 200 right off the bat, and then by 4 p.m. closes in the sideways direction, relatively flat.

Journalists are expressing less worry over the European fiscal crisis. I don't expect that to hold one little bit.

Scientific wisdom once held that once you hit adulthood, your brain lost all ability to form new neural connections. This ability, called plasticity, was thought to be confined to infancy and childhood.

Wrong. A 2007 study on a stroke patient found that her brain had adapted to the damage to nerves carrying visual information by pulling similar information from other nerves. This followed several studies showing that adult mice could form new neurons. Later studies found more evidence of human neurons making new connections into adulthood; meanwhile, research on meditation showed that intense mental training can change both the structure and function of the brain.

Oil is hemorrhaging into the Gulf and apparently there is no way to stop it.

The top hat failed, the siphoning pipe failed, the junk shot is coming allegedly on Wednesday, and the relief well is months away.

This thing is like Godzilla, nobody has control over it, and worse nobody wants to assume control over it although the fickle finger points to BP. The rapist is responsible for caring for the victim.

What gets me are the people who are talking about the lessons learned and now they want to make offshore completely safe. Sorry that is the wrong answer right now, and just put a cork in it.

The irony is having someone like Republican Jindal calling for the government to take over the response. So is that socialism. Excuse me Republicans and Jindal, what about all that free market capitalism and elimination of the EPA with its stupid environmental protections and requirements for corporations. Now we learn that regulators were about as lax as lax can be. Who is responsible for that? Could it be the previous administration?

As bad as this thing is making Obama look, it makes Republicans looks like complete fools. And isn't this the problem, this is a political battle when hello out there, this is an environmental catastrophe.

Investors will be keeping tabs on the Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 U.S. cities, which comes out at 9 a.m. ET. The index is expected to have risen 2.8% in March after climbing 0.6% in February.

Also on tap is reading on consumer confidence at 10 a.m. ET. The Conference Board's index is expected to have risen to 58.3 in May from 57.9 in April.

The U.S. official leading the response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill said Sunday that only BP had the expertise to plug the gaping hole in its deepwater well and that he trusted the oil company was doing its best.